VietNamNet Bridge - Tran Bac Ha, chairman of the Vietnam Bank for Investment and Development (BIDV), one of the largest state-owned commercial banks in Vietnam, will retire from September after 35 years working at BIDV.

Mr. Tran Bac Ha

Ha confirmed the information with Dantri online on August 17. However, the replacement as the top leader of BIDV is still a secret.

Ha started working at BIDV in February 1981. In July 1991 he was appointed director of BIDV branch in the central province of Binh Dinh. During this time, he directly built and established BIDV exchange office No.3, BIDV Securities Company, BIDV Debt and Asset Management Company, BIDV representatives in Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, the Czech Republic and representative offices in Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar.

He became BIDV Deputy General Director in October 2009. In May 2003 he was appointed BIDV General Director and joined the Board of Directors. In January 2008 he was appointed BIDV Chair.

Ha is very well-known in the banking sector. He is also the chair of the Association of Vietnamese Investors in Cambodia (AVIC), Laos (AVIL) and Myanmar (AVIM).

Ha currently owns 136,643 shares of BIDV, representing 0.004% of the capital in the bank.

In the first half of this year, BIDV earned pre-tax profit of VND3,311 billion (over $148 million). Its total bad debt is VND13,183 billion ($591 million), with the irrecoverable debt of VND6,343 billion ($284 million), an increase of more than VND1,100 billion ($49 million) compared to last year and accounted for half of the total bad debts of the bank. Although the NPL ratio was only 2%, the absolute value increased rapidly, about 31% compared with the end of 2015.

By the end of 2015, BIDV sold tens of thousands of billion VND of bad debts to the Vietnam Assets Management Corporation (VAMC), the highest amount in the banking system.

Na Son